Apple Approves the first Google Voice app in over a year: GV Connect

For those of you who are active Google Voice users (us here at Smartphone Nation are heavy users of the free service), it is time to rejoice. Apple has finally approved a native Google Voice client for the almighty iPhone. GV Connect is a nice native application that does what the original app did:

GV Connect is a native iPhone/iPod Touch application which allows you to interact with your existing “Google Voice” account – it provides the best integration with your Google Voice account, allowing you to access features in a simple way directly from your device:

Place calls using your Google Voice number rather than your mobile number – enter number directly, select a contact from your device’s contacts, or call back any number in your history.

Send and receive text messages (SMS) from your Google Voice number.

Listen to voicemails and recorded conversations right on your device (allowing you to pause, rewind, or fast forward to any point within the message) – voicemails will also show the transcription of the message when available.

All communication is done with the Google Voice website directly, no need to hand over your account information to a third-party.

GV Connect stores your account password securely in your device’s keychain for faster login when launching the application – communication is done via secure connections (SSL) to the Google Voice servers and no contact information (other than the contact’s phone number which is required to place a call or send a message) is sent to Google. All operations are fully synchronized with your Google Voice account.

So there it goes. For those who were waiting impatiently for a jailbreak to come out just as fast as Apple decided to update their software, be happy you’re not staying up long nights of trying to downgrade just to jailbreak. Google Voice is back in the App Store and it’s not going nowhere this time. Now I wonder when they’ll approve Sean Kovacs’ app…